Stockholm, Oslo First to Get Commercial LTE

TeliaSonera, a Scandinavian telecom operator, today launched a high-speed wireless network that’s based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. LTE & WiMAX are two wireless technologies that are generically referred to as 4G wireless, even though the ITU still hasn’t fully defined 4G. TeliaSonera’s LTE service is available commercially to its customers in Stockholm, Sweden, and Oslo, Norway.

The carrier also has a license to roll out an LTE network in Finland. “The network rollout is in progress to offer 4G to Sweden’s and Norway’s largest cities,” the company said in a press statement. It’s using Ericsson and Huawei’s gear for this network, while Samsung is providing the LTE modem dongles. The network in Oslo offers maximum speeds of up to 100Mbps, according to Huawei.

We should start to hear about more LTE rollouts this year, including some kind of news announcement from Verizon Wireless, which is one of the more aggressive LTE backers in the world. In addition to Verizon, MetroPCS has plans to roll out an LTE network as well.